LONDON, ENGLAND.- A major landscape by the great Austrian Expressionist painter Egon Schiele (1890-1918) will be offered for sale at Sotheby’s in London in June. It has recently been restituted to the heirs of the original Viennese collectors from whom it was looted by the Nazis in 1938.
Painted in 1916, Krumauer Landschaft (Stadt und Fluss), is a striking and vibrant depiction of the small town of Krumau, on the banks of the Moldau river in Bohemia. It is estimated to fetch £5-7 million in the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening sale on Monday, June 23, 2003.
The painting was originally part of the collection of Wilhelm (Willy) and Daisy Hellmann of Vienna. Willy was a textile magnate and his wife, Daisy, was a member of one of the most important families of art patrons in Vienna in the first quarter of the 20th century. The Hellmanns bought Landscape at Krumau directly from Schiele, who was a personal friend, soon after it was painted. The work hung in the Hellmann’s apartment until October 1938 when it was seized by the Nazis and put up for sale in Vienna in 1942. It was bought by Wolfgang Gurlitt who sold it to the Neue Galerie in Linz in January 1953, where it has been on public display until its restitution earlier this year.
The painting’s history came to light following research by Lucian Simmons, Head of Sotheby’s Restitution department and Andrea Jungmann, Head of Sotheby’s Austria. Their efforts were co-ordinated with those of the Jewish Community in Vienna, who were instrumental in achieving the painting’s return to its rightful owners.
Melanie Clore, Deputy Chairman of Sotheby’s Europe and Head of the Impressionist and Modern Art Department, said: “We are delighted that Sotheby’s has been entrusted with the sale of Krumauer Landschaft, one of the great townscapes from the last years of Schiele’s career. It will be the highlight of what promises to be an outstanding sale in June.”
Erika Jakubovits, Executive Director of the Presidency of the Jewish Community in Vienna, said: “We are very happy that we have succeeded in restituting this painting. Sixty years on, it is important to recognize the enduring rights of victims and their heirs.
“We would like to thank the Mayor of the city of Linz and all others who have been involved for their recognition of the moral obligation to return this painting. We believe it will aid us in our efforts to help other Austrian Holocaust victims in gaining restitution of works of art.”
Schiele had close links with the town of Krumau. It was his mother’s birthplace and a refuge for the artist at various times in his troubled life. Schiele brings a distinctive, vertiginous style to this dynamic vision of his maternal home town. Against a background of verdant green hills, the houses are painted from an unnaturally high vantage point as if stacked up one upon the other with their bright orange-red and brown roofs, while the river snakes through the composition with the sinuous curve of a woman’s body.
Tragically in 1918 at the age of just 28, Schiele fell victim to the Spanish flu epidemic that spread throughout Europe. Krumauer Landschaft, executed in 1916, epitomises his unique contribution to the development of modern art in the first decades of the 20th century and is one of the greatest townscapes from the last years of his career.
Prior to its sale on June 23, the Schiele masterpiece will be on public exhibition in Sotheby’s New York in May.